Pope Francis Embraces Green Theology to Demonize the Modern World

The pontiff adopts the gospel according to Greenpeace

Pope Francis's eco-encyclical, issued to great fanfare this week, might be hyperbolic, anti-progress, and seemingly keen to bring the hotness of hell up to Earth. (How else do we explain its mad aside against air-conditioning, which the pontiff brands as one of humanity's "harmful habits"? Clearly he wants to heat us up in preparation for our eternal frying for all the eco-sins we've committed.) But we should nonetheless be grateful that, for all its dottiness, this humanity-lecturing letter has been published. For it shows in black and white—and green—what a colossal amount in common there is between environmentalism and Catholicism.

That Francis can so readily adopt eco-lingo, can read as fluently from the gospel according to Greenpeace as he does from those other gospels, confirms that God-botherers and eco-worriers share a serious agitation with the human urge to explore and develop—what they call our "hubris"—and long to make us live simpler, less stuff-filled lives.

Francis takes to eco-moaning like a duck to water. (Probably polluted water— yes, yes, we know.) He slams humanity's view of itself as "lords and masters" of nature, our belief that we can "plunder her at will." Such arrogance and greed will have "dire consequences," he finger-wags. Mother Nature has been "gravely damaged by our irresponsible behaviour," and all we're leaving to future generations is "debris, desolation and filth."

He warns that our avarice—by which he means our desire to live in big homes and drive nice cars, like he does—is propelling the world to disaster. We have become "self-centred." "The emptier a person's heart is, the more he or she needs things to buy, own and consume," he says, from his vast, palatial home, which has so much art in it that if you spent one minute looking at each piece you'd be there for four years. Seriously, it's like being lectured about paying your taxes by Charles Rangel.

And what will be the end result of our wicked urge to own things? Mayhem, of course. All the pollution produced in the making of our things will increase "the threat of extreme weather events," he says, echoing in green-friendly language the Old Testament God's promise of floods as punishment for mankind's sinful antics. We should also gird ourselves for the "catastrophic consequences of social unrest," since "our obsession with a consumerist lifestyle, above all when few people are capable of maintaining it, can only lead to violence and mutual destruction."

Shorter version: your material aspirations will destabilise the planet and cause people to kill each other. So lower your horizons. The meek shall inherit the Earth.

Francis is especially agitated by what he calls our Promethean delusions, our belief we can tame nature and use her resources to create a world of plenty and opportunity.

Humans are "usurping the place of God," says God's representative on Earth, "even to the point of claiming an unlimited right to trample his creation underfoot." We think we have "dominion over the Earth." We are in thrall to a "Promethean vision of [our] mastery over the world," and it's high time we realised that we should be "responsible stewards" of this fragile planet, not "ruthless exploiters" of it.

He slams our "excessive anthropocentrism." We must "restore men and women to their rightful place"—that is, as humble janitors of the planet, whose only job is to keep Earth nice for future generations, not to dig at it, extract its innards, remake it in our own image.

If all this downbeatness about humanity and scaremongering about the future sounds familiar, that's because it echoes the eco-hysteria that has become so prominent in Western political life.

The Vatican is now a fully-fledged green institution. Which isn't surprising. The demonisation of human hubris and promotion of eco-meekness that is at the heart of the green ideology chimes perfectly with the asceticism of Catholicism.

The similarities between the pieties of environmentalism and the diktats of Catholicism are striking. Environmentalism rehabilitates in secular drag the stinging rebukes of humanity once delivered by pointy-hatted men of God.

Christianity's end-of-worldism is getting a new airing in the apocalypse obsession of greens, who warn of an eco-unfriendly End of Days. Its promise of Godly judgement for our wicked ways has been replaced by greens' promise that we'll one day be judged for our planetary destructiveness. A leading British green has fantasised about "international criminal tribunals" for climate-change deniers, who will be "partially but directly responsible for millions of deaths."

The Word of God has become the authority of The Science (greens always say "The" before "Science," to signal its definitiveness.) "Science has spoken," said Ban Ki-Moon last year, in a speech on why we should all obsess over climate change, just as Catholics insist the "Lord has spoken" so STFU. Greens breathe life back into Catholic guilt, too, urging us to feel bad about everything from flying abroad to eating strawberries out of season. Carbon-calculating, where people measure their every single production of carbon, is like Catholic guilt on steroids.

Of course, you can offset your carbon by planting a tree or something—what Catholics call penance. In the past, rich believers paid priests loads of money for an Indulgence, which absolved them of their non-mortal sins—today the eco-concerned wealthy spend their cash on offsetting their carbon farts, the modern equivalent of an Indulgence.

This is why Francis is so drawn to environmentalism: he sees it as a more acceptable, 21st-century way of pushing the guilt and meekness and anti-Promethean outlook that the Vatican has long been hawking.

Indeed, the most striking passage in his encyclical is when he celebrates environmentalism for potentially bringing to an end the era of progress: "Following a period of irrational confidence in progress and human abilities, some sectors of society are now adopting a more critical approach. We see increasing sensitivity to the environment and the need to protect nature." The honesty here is refreshing: the Pope likes the green stuff because it winds back modernity; it reins in the moment in history when we believed in progress and human power.

He's talking about the Enlightenment, in essence. About that revolution in ideas when philosophers and scientists challenged the mysticism of the Church and said mankind should explore his surroundings, extract nature's secrets, dare to know, dare to discover. That radical moment which led to us unlocking the long-dormant sunlight in coal to power the Industrial Revolution: which allowed us to fly; which helped us discover the fantastic secrets hidden in uranium, which earlier generations only used to dye glass yellow but which we have used to create so much energy that even God was probably bowled over. He's talking about humanity playing God, which, as God's spokesman, he isn't happy about.

How striking that he now dons enviro-garb in order to hector hubristic humans and cheer the coming to an end of the "irrational confidence in progress." He instinctively recognises that environmentalism represents the greatest challenge to what he no doubt views as the error of Enlightenment. And he's right. Those of us who still believe in progress, and in humanity, and who think Prometheus had the right idea, will need to wage war on green thinking as determinedly as those Enlightenment greats stood up to the humanity-binding mysticism of their eras.

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But that would involve democrats having standards and a sense of morality. They don’t. As long as they think they will get enough communism delivery from a politician, their conduct is tolerable. My aunt once told me as a feminist she could tolerate Bubba’s raping and sexual harass,emt because of his good Marxist works.

…he sees it as a more acceptable, 21st-century way of pushing the guilt and meekness and anti-Promethean outlook that the Vatican has long been hawking.

I think, like the leaders of the green movement, he probably sees it as a great tool to redistribute wealth. It’s hard to tell if Francis is a Catholic first or a Socialist first or if they happily coincide in his mind. I suppose it’s likely he actually believes he’s saving souls, but like a good pope/environmentalist, he understands that the continued suffering of the least among us in poverty and want is an acceptable price to pay to reach salvation.

This. Remember – he is the first Latin American Pope. We aren’t just talking wealth redistribution, either. It is INTERNATIONAL wealth redistribution that is frequently advocated. America would owe the rest of the world for all of the harm its done. Africa and South America in particular would be in for some nice treats.

Fortunately that just isn’t going to happen. Outside of proggie echo chambers nobody likes the idea of distributing their wealth around the world. Foreign aid is a pretty small part of the federal budget but look at the hissy fits people have about that.

The pope’s veiw’s are pure evil,they would doom many countries to poverty,starvation and disease. Ridding the world of fossil fuels wound eliminate planes ,cars,cargo trains and ships and petochemicals.

Just more of the same shit from religion. Earthly pleasures are wrong; sitting quietly in a room thinking about god is good. If you’re not depriving yourself of happiness, you’re not doing it right. Wealth and technology just distract you from sick and depraved you are. Repent, repent. So on and so forth.

He’s just yer typical statist fuck, who’d rather everybody were equally destitute and in thrall to their betters, than all better off but in varying degrees and too busy enjoying life to bow and scrape.

The average person should be wretched and poor so the church has someone to “lift up,” and society’s betters, those who can truly handle the awesome responsibility of wealth and power, will fund the church’s good deeds.

Hillary Clinton has spoken out for decades against extremists who pervert the world’s great religions to justify brutality against women and girls. That is what Republicans are attacking her for,” Podesta said in a statement provided to BuzzFeed News.

“ISIS claims their religious faith justifies forcing Yazidi women in Iraq into sexual slavery. Does Gov. Bush think we should respect that practice?” Podesta said. “The Taliban torture women in Afghanistan in the name of their twisted version of Islam. Does Gov. Jindal think that is acceptable? What about forced marriages or throwing acid in women’s faces?”

“If Republicans think standing up to these atrocities is part of Hillary Clinton’s progressive agenda, we are proud to agree,” Podesta said. “As a woman of faith herself, she won’t hesitate to condemn those who distort religious beliefs to justify barbaric actions.”

Yeah, and how much money has she taken from Saudi Arabia in a blatant play for pay racket?

Holy shit, what a hack she is. She really has no idea what to say. She just makes shit up and throws it out there to see if it works. Camps for adults? Bush supports rape and torture of innocent women? She really has no idea what she is doing.

My Marxist aunt told me she actually beleives that an employer not wanting to pay for specific forms of contraception for employees is EXACTLY the same as forcing clitorectomies on young girls in Islamic countries.

Keep in mind she is a retired professor of English and library department head with an advanced degree. Pretty frightening shit.

Well, Francis is a Jesuit, so that pretty much sums up how they think we should live. Nobody should really be surprised. He’s the first Jesuit pope in the 500 year history of that order; whether he is the last will tell us something about how ready the rest of the cardinals are to accept socialism, liberation theology, and “social justice.”

Ultimately, we’re not going to sell a set of logical constructions, but we could sell a set of libertarian values. Value other people’s freedom as you value your own–because their right to make choices for themselves is your right to make choices for yourself, too.

Average people aren’t disgusted by injustice because it violates some logically consistent argument. They’re instinctively disgusted by government abuse because it offends their sensibilities. Maybe the biggest problem we have today is that people’s instinctive disgust is all screwed up, and instead of condemning government abuse, they praise it in the name of equity, equality, and safety. The way to fix those screwed up instinctive sensibilities is by spreading libertarian sensibilities like a religion–and that should be easy. “People have the right to do as they please so long as they don’t initiate force against others” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is six of one and half a dozen of the other–it’s just a question of whether you want to teach religion as philosophy or teach philosophy as religion.

Deep Ecology has always had a spiritual component, and, yeah, it’s a natural sell for a religion like Catholicism. Capitalism was more effective when it was married to religion (Protestantism), too. If we’re going after the Pope for sanctifying the blessed state of poverty, then we should probably get religious about it.

We’re right on the essentials, but we’re being outmaneuvered. Science isn’t a response to religion. Review your Leo Strauss

“People have the right to do as they please so long as they don’t initiate force against others” and “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is six of one and half a dozen of the other–it’s just a question of whether you want to teach religion as philosophy or teach philosophy as religion.

Except people who claim to be Christians rarely follow the golden rule in practice. If lofty rhetoric that are never implemented in reality are what you want, we already have those all over the Bill of Rights.

I don’t know that’s so. I think those golden rule/NAP ideas underlie a lot of our thinking–even for those of us in American culture who aren’t Christians.

One of the reasons Martin Luther King’s nonviolent protest movement was so effective was because so many people saw the police response to the protests and thought to themselves, “I wouldn’t want to be treated that way”. Why were so many abolitionists in the North so unwilling to accept slavery? It wasn’t because they didn’t give a damn about the Golden Rule.

There have always been Christians who undermine those ideals, but those ideals have always stood in contrast to what such nominal Christians were doing. Why do some 40% of Christians support gay marriage–even though most of them think it’s a sin? There’s gotta be some evidence of a Golden Rule in that somewhere!

Regardless, what we should preach and what some others have preached in the past are two different questions. Religion can be seen as a tool. A knife can chop carrots or it can be used as a murder weapon. The pope is effectively using religion to preach poverty by way of government control. I’m saying we should use it to chop carrots.

Jesus would throw up seeing the way church is. To see folks worshiping pope’s, priests, and all the other crap folks do, along with advocating gov’t over God……. Francis’s preferred brand of socialism has impoverished countless amounts of individuals.

People sit in the church pews gobbling up what this guy is speaking about, yet fail to realize that in order to implement any of these policies would require the violation of the 10 commandments. It’s ok to worship top men and woman over their god though…..even though that is a sin, because top men are greater than God, and can sin as they please.

Freedom is the only way individuals will advance and have a chance to lift themselves out of poverty. If believing in God, and Jesus helps get them there (without violating the liberty of others), more power to them. If people actually followed those teachings, they would oppose gov’t every step of the way and support all being free. Pope Francis hides behind God and Jesus, while advocating things antithetical to what Jesus preached. For Jesus to label tax collectors sinners, shows he understood taxation is nothing more than extortion.

Jesus showed the world how violent taxation, and government is. He died on the cross, at the hands of violent gov’t and those who worshipped it.

Despite all his warnings, folks still choose gov’t over the God they are supposed to believe in. No matter how much they pray, their God isn’t listening to them as explained in Samuel 8.

Socialism killed 100M people in the 20th century while capitalism lifted billions out of poverty.

Since socialism wasn’t around before the 1800s, it’s hard to compare it with religion. But one could nevertheless collect historical data; I wonder how organized religion would compare? It sure hasn’t alleviated poverty. I wonder how many it has killed per capita, to allow some comparison to 20th century socialism?

” For Jesus to label tax collectors sinners, shows he understood taxation is nothing more than extortion.”

But he also said, in response to a direct question re the morality of taxation, “render unto Caesar what is due unto Caesar.” I.e., if you owe Caesar, you owe Caesar. I always thought the point of the tax-collector thing was that Jesus deigned to keep company even with prostitutes and tax-collectors, who are despised by everybody, because Jesus recognized that no one is as clean as they think they are.

“He died on the cross, at the hands of violent gov’t and those who worshipped it.:”

No. At least if you take the Gospel at its word, he did die at the hands of the government, but the killing was instigated by the Temple. Pilate is forced to kill Jesus by an angry mob.

To me, what Jesus was trying to communicate was that the “system” is itself corrupt and corrupting. You can’t participate in the system without participating in its immorality.

Everywhere in the Gospel Jesus argues nothing so much as “turn away from society and reject its practices.” If you are going to participate, you are going to engage in sinful behavior, and become indebted to evil forces. This is in the nature of political society.

I don’t fully subscribe to this way of thinking myself, but to me it’s pretty clear that this is where Jesus was heading in his various statements on this, which is why the politics the current “pope” is engaging in are so hypocritical.

I think you might swallow your contempt for Catholicism and study harder.

Consider this: Jesus earthly ministry was for the Jew only, with two exceptions, both of whom had to persistently come to him, not the other way around. It was to prove to the Jews he was the Messiah and the time of the Kingdom was at hand. Period. The true “Gospel” (Christ’s death, burial resurrection” was a revelation to Paul, some time after Christ’s death, and even the twelve Apostles had to come to this years after his death. This after it was clear the Jews had rejected Christ as the promised Messiah.

Also consider: His teachings; rendering to Caesar, obeying the government, turning the other cheek, giving the poor not just your shirt but also your cloak, worry not what you will eat or wear, etc are an attempt to reinforce his illustration and promise that you are here for an extremely short time and heaven is where your concerns should be.

In short, your job is to have the faith that you don’t care what misery and/or persecution comes your way here on earth, but rather you are to lay up your treasures in heaven. It’s hard to say, but God doesn’t care whether you live or die, rather HOW you live.

Don’t confuse the terms Christianity and religion out of ignorance, as so many here do.

Yeah, I think he’s been a disaster as Pope. He doesn’t seem to understand that his role is to help build the health of the organization, not to just spout off pronouncements about his personal opinions on every topic (relevant to his job or not). A lot of his opinions actually run counter to Catholic doctrine (not always a bad thing), which will likely alienate quite a few Catholics, but he seems to be courting progressive liberals, a group who aren’t going to be inclined to become Catholic (or any other religion) anyway, so it’s a shitty recruiting strategy. Assuming that it’s actually a strategy and not just a case of the Catholic Church appointing their own version of Obama to run the organization.

Unfortunately for them, unlike Obama the Pope isn’t up for reelection every four years.

Last weekend, the long-awaited mid-century modern credenza my husband and I had purchased arrived at our home. But it wasn’t carried in by two heavy lifters in white gloves. Rather, a 60-some year old woman stood at the door and pointed us to the 35-foot moving truck that contained the seven-foot-long, solid teak beauty. “I have a bad shoulder”, she explained as she led us toward the truck. Uh oh.???? ????? ???? ???????

It was indeed heartening to see that the Pope cancelled the World Family Conference in Philly, set for Sept., so that several million people would not be spewing out carbon dioxide in order to travel there. Nor will the Pope visit the U.S. or any location where his mere presence leads to monumental traffic jams and running gasoline engines. Since Skype is good enough for President Obama to hold fundraisers, then it is good enough for the Pope to address his flock. Thanks, Francis, for walking the talk.

Reason has just re-posted an interview raising the possibility of reaching out to conservatives. Well, there are come conservatives you can reach out to.

First of all, Catholics are not “conservatives” in the American sense; 18th and 19th century America (i.e., what we would be “conserving”) was strongly anti-Catholic, and for good reason. Catholics are “conservatives” in the European sense, in that they want to restore the position of power of their own church in society.

Now, about the Catholic church itself, when you have delusions that you are God’s representative on Earth, you believe that can do no wrong, and you can torture and murder, desecrate corpses, fuck children, and lie to your heart’s content while telling yourself that you’re doing God’s will. This is the church that voted Hitler into power and had its priests swear allegiance to the Nazi state because they thought that was good for the Catholic church and anybody else didn’t matter.

The Catholic church is intrinsically and irredeemably evil and totalitarian. You cannot cooperate or associate with such an organization without contaminating yourself and risk getting screwed by them down the road. At best, you can stay out of their way when they accidentally advocate a policy that coincides with yours. Even then, you still need to stand up and criticize their reasoning and justifications, which are usually faulty.

“In your country, Venerable Brethren, voices are swelling into a chorus urging people to leave the Church…Our wholehearted paternal sympathy goes out to those who must pay so dearly for their loyalty to Christ and the Church; but directly the highest interests are at stake, with the alternative of spiritual loss, there is but one alternative left, that of heroism. If the oppressor offers one the Judas bargain of apostasy he can only, at the cost of every worldly sacrifice, answer with Our Lord: “Begone, Satan! For it is written: The Lord thy God shalt thou adore, and Him only shalt thou serve” (Matt. iv. 10). And turning to the Church, he shall say: “Thou, my mother since my infancy, the solace of my life and advocate at my death, may my tongue cleave to my palate if, yielding to worldly promises or threats, I betray the vows of my baptism.” As to those who imagine that they can reconcile exterior infidelity to one and the same Church, let them hear Our Lord’s warning: – “He that shall deny me before men shall be denied before the angels of God” (Luke xii. 9).”

You’re right: the Catholic church didn’t like Hitler. In fact, they knew since the late 1920’s that he was a murderous thug with genocidal tendencies, they have said so themselves. That is precisely what makes their choice to support the Enabling Act and sign the Concordat and other agreements with the Nazis so morally reprehensible. The Catholic church didn’t merely make a mistake, they made an informed and deliberate choice to collaborate with evil for their own financial gain and political interests.

The Encyclical you cite was written in 1937. By that time, the Catholic church had concluded that Hitler wasn’t living up to his side of the bargain and that he was spinning completely out of control, so they started started some more tepid verbal attacks. It was all self-serving manipulation and propaganda. And they continued to reap the financial benefits of their agreements with the Nazis (and do to this day).

And the reason the Catholic church opposed Hitler wasn’t because they were supporting freedom and democracy; what the Catholic church really wanted was to bring back a Catholic monarchy, i.e. a totalitarian government with a monarch subordinate to the Pope.

There is nothing “gratuitous” about it. The Catholic church has been morally bankrupt, corrupt, and opportunistic since its creation. Pope Francis jumping on the climate change bandwagon is entirely in character.

The Pope sits in the Vacitan pretending to be God’s emissary on earth living in splendor and opulence while good Catholics strave or barely make ends meet. I personally think the hippocrite should burn in hell.

“Study: 6th mass extinction already underway — and we’re the cause” […] “For example, about 477 vertebrae species have gone extinct since 1900, according to the study. Based on previous extinctions, only nine species would have been expected to die off in the same time frame had it not been for mankind’s involvement.”

The extinction curve in Al Gore’s 1992 opus ‘The Earth In The Balance’ promised the loss of 100,000 species a year by 2000, and an infinite niumber therafter, the curve having merged with the dead vertical line on the graph’s right hand side.

Your last sentence is excellent: “…as determinedly as those Enlightenment greats stood up to the humanity-binding mysticism of their eras.” I can’t remember when I’ve read anyone with courage to say, “We have to stand up to environmentalists.” For reasons I cannot understand, given the environmentalists’ militancy, mainstream thinking in Europe and the United States has wholly adopted a way of thinking that, at its core, is anti-science.

The sad thing is, we can conserve and preserve beauty in God’s nature without following Pope Francis and the rest of the greens. Progress and preservation are not incompatible, by any means.

Thank you for speaking forthrightly about this issue. Environmentalists have made science serve their politics more consistently than any other group. In their way, they have corrupted the scientific project, and made even scientists hesitant to speak up about what has happened. When the pope himself argues in support of this corruption, someone needs to object. You’ve done that effectively.

I suspect he grew up Catholic, because he can’t help combining criticism of Pope Francis with the usual swipes at the Catholic Church and a touchingly naive praise of the Enlightenment. As if Rousseau and Robespierre were champions of the scientific method.

The Catholic church is one of the most hypocritical organizations in the world. They extort money from the poor under threat of damnation so the leadership can live an opulent life. The latest ploy is just an attempt to raise membership and also go after some deeper pockets. The day they cash in their holdings and distribute the proceeds to the poor is the day I might give a shit about what the dude in the funny hat has to say.

The funny-hat dude actually lives fairly simply – and he offers free showers to the homeless, tours of the Sistine Chapel, and dines with them. Other than that, he totally embraces an opulent lifestyle.

Francis recognized that the Catholic church has an image problem and is trying to address it. Perhaps he also fools himself into believing that his stage act represents actual humility.

It doesn’t change the greed and opulence of the entire organization that he is head of. And no matter how good and genuine his intentions may be, he isn’t going to change the Catholic church as a whole.

Popes don’t care that much about what voters or followers think, they care about money and power (some delude themselves that what is good for the Catholic church is good for humanity, others are just corrupt). To get that, they behave like typical rent seekers.

Cozying up to the left has worked tremendously well in Europe. The German socialists and liberals, for example, used to ask for a strict French/US style separation of church and state, but they have given up on that. A few Christian denominations in Germany now participate in drafting all major legislation, continue to receive large amounts of government funding, and run large business empires exempt from pretty much all government oversight and workplace rules.

Protecting the environment and making money don’t have to be mutually exclusive. Take Apple: They make more money than any company in history, and have $195 billion in CASH on hand. They sell a $17,000 18K gold smartwatch. They have margins that are the envy of every industry they’re in, and will most likely be the first public company valuated at a TRILLION dollars.

Yet they’re committed to renewable energy, recycling programs for all of their products, and use easily-recyclable materials such as aluminum (like on my iMac, Apple keyboard, iPhone, and iPad). You don’t have to give up on capitalism to be good for the environment, too.

Apple’s hardware products are no more environmentally friendly than those of their competitors.

Aluminum may be nominally “easily recyclable”, but it consumes vast amounts of energy to produce. By the usual metrics of environmental activists, a plastic case is far more responsible: it takes little energy to produce and it ultimately will result in carbon sequestration if it isn’t recycled.

And Apple’s obscene profit margins are simply a consequence of selling a brand name and a status symbol, but have nothing to do with their hardware or software. Sure, making huge profits on status symbols is “environmentally friendly”, but you aren’t actually getting anything useful for your money.

I’m glad companies like Apple exist to separate fools like you from their money. But if Apple became the model for high tech companies in general, we’d all be in serious trouble.

Ratzinger may have been head of the Holy Inquisition but he was an impotent shriveled up old intellectual. Pope Francis, on the other hand, is really out to burn the witches and rally the pitchforked mobs.

12:13 Then they sent some Pharisees and some Herodians to him, intending to trap him in what he said. 12:14 They came and told him, “Teacher, we know that you are sincere. You don’t favor any individual, because you pay no attention to external appearance. Rather, you teach the way of God truthfully. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not? Should we pay them or shouldn’t we?” 12:15 Seeing through their hypocrisy, Jesus replied to them, “Why are you testing me? Bring me a denarius and let me look at it.” 12:16 So they brought one. Then he asked them, “Whose face and name are on this?” They told him, “Caesar’s.” 12:17 So Jesus told them, “Give back to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” And they were utterly amazed at him.

They were trying to trick Jesus, but he gave a clever answer. Caesar was no God, and didn’t deserve anything. So give back to him his things.

As to taxes: Mark 2:16 When the scribes and the Pharisees saw him eating with sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples, “Why does he eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” 2:17 When Jesus heard that, he told them, “Healthy people don’t need a physician, but sick ones do. I did not come to call righteous people, but sinners.”

Thou shalt not steal. Taxation is theft, which violates the commandments. Jesus never supported such things. Why do you think he paid taxes for him and another with the coin from the mouth of a fish? He cleverly avoided them to preach his message before he died.

“No. At least if you take the Gospel at its word, he did die at the hands of the government, but the killing was instigated by the Temple. Pilate is forced to kill Jesus by an angry mob.”

Jealous, envious, and angry progressives advocate policies that require theft and violence in order to implement and sustain. The government abides by their wishes in most cases no matter who is in charge. Either side advocates their own form of theft. So the government is not at fault because angry people are directing them to commit such violence? Bullshit. Both parties are to blame equally.

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Pope Dope as I refer to him, is an outright communist. He heads a communist-styled organization – tightly controlled, centrally structured, strict dogma and loss of everlasting life for heretics. He comes from an economic and political Podunk, has never worked to live and has no concept of what it’s like in the real world. If the Catholic Church elects more and more cardinals from third-world places, it will have those same attitudes. They will always blame toe developed and generally white world for their own failures and side with the progs whose guilt puts them as colleagues, not competitors.

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